Doc Halladay attempts to win the series for the Phils, looking to bounce back versus the Fish after one of the worst starts of career against the Indians. Against current Marlins, Halladay has a line against of .288/.299/.364 and the Phillies are hitting .364/.389/.545 against Marlins starter Kevin Slowey, so this one has the potential to be high scoring.

So in summation, the Phillies have a chance to win the bumper game against one of the worst teams in baseball if Roy Halladay (6.75 ERA) can only hold the hapless Marlins under 7 runs and the powerhouse Phils can push 8 runs (over twice their average) across the plate against Slowey.
Yeah, that’s doable.
Could be the game that turns the whole season around.

“I really don’t bring any negativity to my circle at all,” Brown said. . “If you’re a negative person, then you should kind of stay away from me. And that’s the truth. I don’t really deal with excuses either. That’s how I was raised. [Dealing with challenges] is part of being a grown up.”

This is not amusing, this is not entertaining, this is rather sickening. Phils getting skunked by a guy who was hitting less than Juan Pierre’s weight coming into the game? 7 rbi?
No fire – no life, just little league.
Wow. Doc needs to spend some time in the minors, see if he can figure out what is wrong instead of hurting what little chances the Phils have for at least a winning record this year.

By the way, I know nobody’s in the mood for details, especially since I’m pretty much guessing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s something in the union agreement about a veteran of some length not being able to be sent down without agreeing to it. Whether or not Doc would think in those terms probably is for conjecture at another time.

The guess was on the right track. What I’ll call a fairly reliable source told us that if a player has x service time (he thought it was 10 years). they can refuse an assignment to the minors. Then, if the club can’t trade him, they have the right to release him, and the player’s out the balance of the contract.

So based on that, you indeed don’t have the option of just saying to a veteran of some length that we’re reassigning you. Doc agreeing, irrelevant now would have been different.

“You can’t ‘fix’ a bad back and I would bet that it will come out shortly that Halladay has been pitching through pain due to back/shoulder injury which has caused him to experiment with different delivery to compensate”.

One thing that works conveniently if the Phils pull Doc and opt for Adam Morgan. Morgan’s pitching today, so the days off would match up They may have had other reasons for going with Pettibone when they replaced Lannan, but the days off factor worked against Morgan then as he had thrown 100 pitches in his previous start that would have left him short rested when Lannan’s turn came up.

“Turn out the lights the season’s over,er party’s over”. Are you kool aid drinkers still believing they can get to .500 ball? Pitiful!! Reminds me of some of the WORST Phillies teams when I was a kid growing up, but I still loved them because no one expected anything more then what we got. However, this is mind boggling.

I wonder if Roy will take a trip down to AAA. I go out on a limb and say certainly glad his contract is up this year with us. Cant afford a 20 Million pitcher trying to find /reinvent himself for another year.

Clearly this team is dead in the water. Bob Ford may have been a little bit off when he spoke about the futility of blowing a team up in May. There are teams such as the Rangers and Angels that would pay more now for two or three more months of Cliff Lee than they would in July. Peter Gammons made that point earlier this week on WIP. Other players such as Ruiz, both Youngs, perhaps even Utley may have more value at the deadline.

We may be closing in on the time when Chad Durbin exits in favor of Justin DeFratus. With bigger problems obvious, and no doubt financial ramifications attached to Durbin, who knows where it is on the priority list, but DeFratus apparently is throwing well (2 shutout innings, though 2 walks roday) and his ERA drops to 1.94.

I don’t know that there’s meaning to this, but Morgan was pulled after 4 innings today, and while he gave up 4 runs on 6 hits, it’s not apparent that there was a pitch count issue involved since he only walked 2.

It’ll be interesting to see if a Friday night start against the Dbax is still in the cards for Doc. ot much point in guessing.

We all knew Halladay might have problems. But what happened to the offense and what happened to that “promising” bullpen? No one could have predicted this kind of terrible play. Mediocre play, maybe, but this isn’t even close to that level. I’d hesitate to bring up anybody to replace Halladay because even an ace will lose with the rest of the team swirling around in the toilet; a prospect would probably try too hard and ruin his mechanics and his confidence.

Anyone else listen to Cholly blubbering on yesterday about how good this kid was pitching? OK, given the fact that a blind squirrel can find a nut, what about the Phils continued ineptitude vs the much vaunted Marlins BP?

Jose Fernandez is one of the best young pitching prospects in baseball, so he’s hardly a blind squirrel. On the other hand, Kevin Slowey has been hittable for most of career – though he is off to a good start this season. In any case, it doesn’t really do a manager any good to publicly throw his players under the bus – as much as fans may want to see that happen.

when Fernandez leaves town and pitches in the real world again, he will continue to fall to earth. Speaking the truth is throwing the boys under the bus? Stop it, the team is just bad and IF there is any hope of turning this season around to be respectable there are some things that need to be done. Cholly has no influence but a bad one on this club anylonger. If it was up to him “Just let them work their way through it, they are professionals” that might have worked when they were younger but the pitiful performances we are seeing against some really questionable competition speaks volumes.
Really, what hope do you see in this team if they “stay the course”?

Who said anything about staying the course? For the past two seasons I’ve been saying they’re on the wrong course. There is no manager on the planet who can take this 25 man roster and get different results. This is solely a personnel problem, and that is the responsibility of the GM.

So, this is just conjecture and all but, he can’t be THAT hurt. If you accept the premise that his shoulder has been hurt the whole time than it should be something nagging and not cataclysmic. Frayed labrum? Loose bodies? I really doubt they would have let him keep pitching with a torn rotator cuff, partial or not. Hamels, Lee, Kendrick, Pettibone, Lannan. Wince.